After arriving in London just before the new millennium without speaking a word of English, she is now entering her 15th year in the city, and recalls some of her struggles and gives her verdict on the citizenship test.
Will Shaw
“I think I got lucky to be honest,” says Gabriela Babic, after quietly contemplating her recent UK citizenship test. “I don’t remember any of it so it was a bit pointless.”
Despite having since forgetten all the historical facts she learned about the UK, Gabriela passed the test, which to her felt like being back at school.
She also received high marks for the language test and would even consider translation as a potential career if she ever returned to her native Poland. But Gabriela definitely wouldn’t have passed any form of English test had she taken it when she arrived in London in December 1999. “I didn’t speak any English so I couldn’t really work,” she recalls. Gabriela took the advice of her hosts and visited the Polish community in Ravenscourt Park, but decided to learn English on her own instead of turning to fellow Poles for help.
“I walked through the streets and everyone was Polish. What was the point of working in Little Poland? I could do this at home!”
Gabriela eventually found work putting envelopes and leaflets together and remembers the conditions – swollen hands and legs through standing in one spot all day – and the pay – “a ton of leaflets for £5!” as a horrible experience.
“I cried my eyes out,” remembers Gabriela, who stayed with a distant acquaintance of her sister’s friend when she first arrived in London. Gabriela left Poland while studying Engineering in the cool Polish student city of Poznan, and feels her unfinished education may damage her prospects if she ever moved back.
“I’d struggle to find a good job in Poland as most people with those jobs have Masters degrees,” says Gabriela. “I’ll probably move somewhere else eventually – maybe an English speaking country with better weather.”
However, Gabriela makes the most of the good weather when it stops over briefly in London every summer. “I like the culture of parks. There’s always stuff happening and you can bring a picnic and chill.” Her other favourite place to be is old-fashioned pubs. “Not the smelly ones!” Gabriela laughs, remembering the years she spent working behind the bar in a vast array of London pubs.
“There was an amazing atmosphere, the locals came back every day and it was great to have a laugh and joke with them.”
Gabriela’s current job as a recruitment consultant for a media agency in the west end gives her the opportunity to pursue another of her interests – going to the theatre, both in the west end and in the basements of pubs and small independent establishments.
“It’s great seeing people trying to get noticed, they’re all so young!” Gabriela observes.
Gabriela certainly gets noticed in the house she shares in Acton with three flatmates, where she occasionally takes over the kitchen preparing traditional Polish dishes, embracing her heritage while integrating in British ways of life.
“I understand now why my mother doesn’t make Pierogi [Polish dumplings] very often,” she exclaims, “they take forever!”
(Photos: Pixabay)
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